The first of this weekend’s Ironman races I’ll be examining is Ironman Barcelona. Now in its fourth year as an Ironman branded race, Barcelona attracts a large field to its fast course. There are 40 Kona slots for the 2018 World championship on offer at the race.

Comparing the distributions for this year’s race with those for the previous three suggests 2017 was very slightly slower than the grouped results. The differences are small in each distribution and the impact is hardly significant. So overall the results look to be par for the course.

DNS and DNF Rates at Ironman Barcelona

Year

Listed Athletes

Swim Finish

Swim DNS/DNF

Bike Finish

Bike DNF

Run Finish

Run DNF

Overall DNS/DNF

2014

2536

2135

15.8%

2067

3.2%

1946

5.9%

23.3%

2015

2556

2150

15.9%

2129

1%

2056

3.4%

19.6%

2016

2836

2463

13.2%

2421

1.7%

2346

3.1%

17.3%

2017

2571

2564

0.3%

2503

2.4%

2417

3.4%

6%

My previous data blends DNS and DNF numbers in the results so it’s hard to directly compare swim or overall figures. Allowing for that, both bike and run DNF figures appear to be typical for the course, falling somewhere in the middle of the years.

As the distributions were so similar, so to are the medians. There’s variation among the age groups, some faster or slower by small margins, but no major trends among them.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Barcelona

Country

Count

Percentage

United Kingdom

597

20.5

Spain

430

14.7

Ireland

353

12.1

Russia

170

5.8

France

134

4.6

Poland

120

4.1

Germany

117

4

Finland

106

3.6

Italy

102

3.5

Belgium

71

2.4

Ironman Barcelona 2017 Predicted Kona Qualifiers by Country

Country

Percentage of Slots

Percentage of Field

Germany

15.0

4.0

Belgium

10.0

2.4

Switzerland

10.0

1.3

United Kingdom

10.0

20.5

Spain

7.5

14.7

Denmark

7.5

1.8

Canada

5.0

0.8

Italy

5.0

3.5

Russia

5.0

5.8

Turkey

2.5

0.6

Poland

2.5

4.1

Brazil

2.5

0.6

Iceland

2.5

0.4

Slovenia

2.5

0.3

Netherlands

2.5

1.5

South Africa

2.5

0.5

Norway

2.5

1.4

France

2.5

4.6

Barcelona draw a broad range of nationalities, with the UK being the most numerous at the event. Kona slots look to be distributed equally widely too.

Unsurprisingly, there’s not too much variation in times when we track them for specific age group positions over the last four years. Small variations again, but no major trends and no particular year standing out.

Ironman Barcelona 2017 Predicted Kona Qualification Times

Age Group

Slots

Winner

Average Kona Qualifier

Final Qualifier

M18-24

1

09:04:17

09:04:17

09:04:17

M25-29

2

08:30:53

08:46:33

09:02:14

M30-34

3

08:39:17

08:42:17

08:45:33

M35-39

4

08:22:24

08:45:34

08:58:28

M40-44

5

08:39:34

08:46:49

08:52:01

M45-49

4

09:04:11

09:11:54

09:27:05

M50-54

3

08:58:59

09:10:17

09:29:18

M55-59

2

09:33:51

09:40:28

09:47:06

M60-64

1

10:27:24

10:27:24

10:27:24

M65-69

1

10:54:09

10:54:09

10:54:09

F18-24

1

10:59:25

10:59:25

10:59:25

F25-29

1

10:24:24

10:24:24

10:24:24

F30-34

1

09:21:19

09:21:19

09:21:19

F35-39

2

09:30:23

09:36:16

09:42:10

F40-44

2

09:44:40

10:12:13

10:39:46

F45-49

2

10:30:18

10:40:59

10:51:40

F50-54

1

09:43:47

09:43:47

09:43:47

F55-59

1

11:29:13

11:29:13

11:29:13

F60-64

1

11:40:58

11:40:58

11:40:58

F65-69

1

12:38:32

12:38:32

12:38:32

Based on the start list I’ve estimated how Kona slots were likely to be distributed and from that the finishing times that automatically qualified. Roll down and final allocations may impact these numbers. You can compare with other races on my Kona qualification page.

Finally, tracking the top twenty in each age group shows a bit more variance across age groups. Broadly speaking the fastest finishers – those making the podium – produced times matching or beating the average for the course. Further back we see more variation with some groups trending faster than average and some slower to differing degrees.